B.C. Fire Tornado Grabs Firefighters’ Hose, Pulls It 100 Feet in the Air

A team of responders in British Columbia had a recent close encounter with a wildfire that grabbed their hose…and wouldn’t let go.

“When I went through basic firefighter training, the instructors did not cover what to do if a fire tornado takes possession of our fire hose,” writes Wildfire Today editor Bill Gabbert. “What would YOU do if your fire hose got swept up?”

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“Fire tornado destroyed our line. It threw burning logs across our guard for 45 minutes and pulled our hose 100 plus ft in the air before melting it. That’s definitely a first,” wrote Vanderhoof, B.C. firefighter M.C. Schidlowsky on her Instagram feed. “It got over 200 ft tall but the smoke was too thick to see it clearly on video.”

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